Firstly I'm a filmmaker, and I have nothing but respect for those that have actually navigated the gauntlet and succeeded in creating and finishing a film, so; good for the filmmakers.
Unfortunately that's where the praise stops. As they should be experienced enough by now to spot a terrible script. (Cheapest bit to get right, but so rarely done)
The Director ... There aren't words, just: casting: awful, simply awful... What's with the accents all over the place, half the English weren't, the French king sounded like no other 'french' (one heavily and horribly American, others eastern European) in his small theatre OTT. accent. The fights were needlessly unrealistic, tried to be cool, unlucky gamble. Really should have spent more time with casting, as none of the actors came off well and that tells me of a poor director that didn't rehearse with them enough. And didn't breakdown the script properly.
the cinematography: were there two conflicting DOP's?? Some shots were actually classy and well graded and framed and beautiful, making me believe the world. Then they were cut in with horribly framed, shaky hand-held pointless shots which made absolutely no sense. A DOP should be able to tell the story just with the shot selection, how you frame actors can tell a huge amount about their relations and emotions and so on.
The editing... Just... Wow. Equal to cinematography. So many shots were utterly pointless and just throw you out, they stand out for all the wrong reasons.
All goes back to the direction: did I mention BOOBS? Yeah because they helped the story... Maybe they were the story, three boobs decided to... Waste their and everyone else's time, all the way to this present day.
And I love that almost all the positive reviews on here are clearly from the same person, all around the same date, all written in the same flawed English and grammatical structure. That amused me greatly.
Don't get me wrong, I love this genre, but I really really want the filmmaker to grow, and learn from his mistakes. And I never even mentioned the sound... Obviously radio mics were above the budget which went on clean costumes (or were they via re-enactors?) and OTT/ unnecessary makeup.
I did however quite like the locations, when believable / historically believable.
Well done for trying.
